Big Hearted Mavericks celebrating 15 years of literacy with PREP Society

A Calgary business group is supporting children and young adults with Down syndrome through a literacy program.

The Big Hearted Mavericks are a major supporter of the PREP Society’s literacy program that has donated close to $500,000 in it’s 15 year partnership the group .

Tim Arnett, member since 2007, says the literacy program at PREP started with a handful of students and is making a difference in the lives of kids and young adults with down syndrome.

“Yeah, we’re proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish,” he said. “And once our supporters have gotten to see the success, I think there’s a lot of money in Calgary from individuals and corporations that really just want to make a difference locally and when the metrics are there to say hey, look how many kids we’re helping, it’s made our job a lot easier.”

Powerful partnerships

Curtis Slater, executive director says a lot of the programs and services at PREP wouldn’t exist without partnerships of community groups like the Mavericks.

“Being a non-profit like us, our reading program wouldn’t exist without their support,” he said. “They’ve been instrumental, they helped us pilot it years ago, they started with a few thousand dollars and six students and now today they’ve grown that program with us to over 60 readers now in the literacy program.”

The PREP Society supports and empowers children with down syndrome starting at two and a half years old through their teens by providing speech/language therapy, reading instruction and a variety of other services in addition to what they’re taught in their school environment.

“They’re not getting that one on one support in a classroom setting as much as they get here,” said Hannah Martineau, literacy team lead. “One-on-one allows us to be personalized with the students and really feed into their interests and that really engages them and helps them to learn to read.”

Tackling novels

Martineau says some of their readers in the program have progressed onto reading novels.

“And then we have some students who are learning their family names and that sounds really foundational literacy skills,” she said. “We’ve also got students from kindergarten right up until adulthood - I think our oldest student is actually 35.”

Martineau says instructors use materials that are at the same level as the student and they’ll also use whatever the student is passionate about like sports teams, movies or cartoons. She says learners have special moments of retention.

“It is incredible because some of the time it can take many, many sessions for us to see that kind of little jump in progress,” she said. “And then when you get it and you see that student recognize that letter sound or read that sight word that you’ve been exposing them to for many, many months, perhaps - it is such a special moment, it keeps us going for months.

The Mavericks are made up of 25 businessmen with a mantra of good friends making a difference.

“We work with AARC which is Alberta Adolescent Recovery Center, we work with Between Friends, the Calgary Dolphins and Community Kitchen and Kids Sport as well,” said Arnett.

The PREP Society is looking forward to continuing it’s partnering with the Mavericks.